


Coming of Age

by faufaren



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Child Abuse, Friends With Benefits, Friendship/Love, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Pre-Canon, Psychopathology & Sociopathy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-11
Updated: 2016-08-01
Packaged: 2018-05-19 19:43:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5978938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faufaren/pseuds/faufaren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Exploration drabbles in the birth, development, and maintenance of the unconventional friendship between young Hisoka and Illumi. Not in chronological order. Takes place before Hunter X Hunter storyline.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Impressions, Hisoka

Hisoka was the kind of man in which it was impossible not to look at him a second time if you just happened to pass him in the streets.

He had a sense of theatrical flare about himself without even trying. He was a whimsical man who preferred bright and eye-catching colors-- ergo his hair was constantly jumping from one brilliant hue to another, as though there was not a single color that could fully satisfy him.

But there was one constant on his face, and that was the gold of his eyes. It was a cold gold, that made a person think of predators and poison, and they slanted slightly upwards in a way that spoke of eastern descent, though no one except Hisoka himself could be quite sure.

He was also a rather amorous sort of man, androgynous if not in natural appearance then in mannerisms and his way of speech, all charming allures and half-purred words and poetic posturing-- such as the way he could effortlessly bend himself into shapes that looked as if he had lost all the bones in his body. Alhough he was almost taller than most men, he had a taste for high heeled shoes. He was surprisingly nimble in them as well, evident in the way he leapt and flipped and twisted around his opponents (though they were more accurately labelled his victims).

Hisoka was quietly attention-drawing-- the type of attraction in which he had to do nothing for people to stare at him, the type of drama that made him the ideal muse for every poet and playwright in the land.

Thus, he was the exact sort of person that Illumi tended to avoid being around. But for some reason Hisoka was like a bur in the side that refused to go away, as sticky as his Nen gum, very easily distracted but quick to return back beside him once the passing fancy was satisfied.

The names Hisoka gave his Nen abilities reflected his personality, especially the one he so lovingly called Bungee Gum. Its second name was Elastic Love, and Illumi thought that it fitted the man extremely well. Hisoka loved so passionately and obsessively, all-encompassing and indiscriminate regardless of race, age, and sex, so as long as you were strong enough to pique his interest. And still, it could end at any given point in time-- once his curiosity was satisfied, or if he found larger bounties to prey upon.

It was kind of fucked up, honestly.


	2. Impressions, Illumi

Illumi Zoldyck was a man who didn't belong in any category but his own, who took the labels that society put on people, melted them in acid, and reshaped them until he held in his hands something that he approved of.

He was the eldest of all the children in his household, and as such, was groomed to be the perfect, spotless example for all the following children born. Both the mentor and the role model responsible for his younger siblings, he was almost the third parent of his family, if not more because of the sheer limitless measures to which he would go for their sakes.

There were no passions that Illumi had to speak of, except for maybe killing, but his muse was his beloved little brother, Killua, whom he loved to the point of all-consuming possessiveness. It shouldn't be a surprise that Illumi had been the one to give his little brother his own name, named after the thing he'd centered his world around before Killua existed (then Illumi turned into a doting brother who couldn't differentiate affection to violence).

He was the quiet type, another predator of a different kind, who observed carefully and snatched his victims out right in front of their families' eyes before they even realized that their own homes had betrayed them. He was the shadow that nobody noticed, the creeping disease that took everyone by surprise because they hadn't known it was deadly.

He, like Hisoka, was also of the androgynous sort, but entirely in appearances rather than any mannerisms of his own.

His face had the sort of beauty that marble statues and their sculptors hoped to achieve. Silent and serene, with a sophisticated yet soft bone structure and lips like finely carved ice, and pale skin that, in accordance with his Zoldyck genes, never tanned or burned. Hair black as midnight, that flowed away from his face and draped on his shoulders and over his back like spilled ink. But it was his eyes, in Hisoka's opinion, that were the most memorable of all his features, those so very large, shapely eyes that were so dark they greedily sucked the light right out of the very atmosphere and gave none of it back.

Illumi had a way of making you feel very small and very weak with just an offhand glance. He was soft-spoken and rarely, if ever, raised his voice, every single emotion shuttered out and locked up tightly behind that smooth visage until they no longer seemed to exist. Instead, he knew of bloodlust and ruthlessness, of taking what he wanted and changing what he didn't like. 

There was a rare kind of beauty inside of Illumi Zoldyck, in the sense that new computers and well-oiled machines were like, and he was Hisoka's until that beauty wore itself out.


	3. Refuge

Illumi is eight years old when one morning he finds Hisoka sitting on top of the Gates of Trial.

"What are you doing?" Illumi has to question this bizarre behavior, though he knows he should really be departing for that mission. Then he wrinkles his nose, deciding to address an even more important issue. "Why haven't the guards kicked you off yet?"

Hisoka looks over his shoulder when Illumi joins him up on the gate. His feet dangle precariously off the edge, where the drop is hundreds of meters down. "Oh, they _tried_ ," Hisoka raises a shoulder in half a shrug.

A moment passes before Illumi realizes that Hisoka isn't going to elaborate on that.

"I see," he says, rather belatedly. Illumi watches the older boy chew his ever-present Bungee Gum, blowing a remarkably large bubble after a few moments, by some miracle never getting any stuck to his lips. "So, why are you here? There's nothing interesting here to see."

Cold gold eyes flashed in amusement and Hisoka chews noisily on his gum some more before replying. "You know that the front gates of your home is literally a tourist attraction? People take buses to come here and there are even hired guides and pamphlets."

Illumi knows that. It is sort of like watching little ants gather around a lollipop on the ground. He tilts his head to the side inquisitively. "You're sightseeing? That's... uncharacteristic."

Hisoka shrugs, a smile playing about his lips, the sort that is brimmed with secrets and sneaky surprises. "I'm not up to anything, really-- just curious."

"So you _are_ sightseeing." Illumi insists.

" _Curious._ " Hisoka replies.

And that's when Illumi begins to notice Hisoka's presence around his home. Hisoka can't exactly go on the Zoldyck residential grounds, but he can climb the hundreds of meters to get on top of the gate and look over it, and that's what he does sometimes. For some reason he is never caught by Mother, and if Father and Grandfather know about it, they never make a mention. Illumi doesn't know what to think of it.

(But sometimes he sees Hisoka when he passes the Gate, either on his way or returning from an assignment, and Illumi takes a few minutes to greet him.)

Weeks later, Hisoka finds Illumi lurking in the dark alleyway next to his family's house. 

"You found out where I live," he states, more than asks. He blows a bubble absentmindedly.

Illumi looks at him with those incredibly dark, blank eyes, standing out largely against the pale of his skin, smooth as milk in his youth. "You know where mine was. It isn't fair otherwise."

"That's true, I guess," Hisoka concedes. "How'd you find it?"

"It wasn't that hard," Illumi rubs his nose. "The smell of Bungee Gum is especially distinguishable among other scents. It stinks in there, by the way."

Hisoka doesn't even bat an eye at Illumi literally sniffing out his bedroom from the next town over like a bloodhound. "I don't spend much time in the house anyway. The most I use it for is storing things and sleeping, honestly."

Face ever passive, Illumi observes Hisoka chew his gum for a few seconds more. Idly, he makes the connection and figures that he sees his own home the same way that Hisoka does.

"The environment outside isn't much of an improvement, though," he adds, absently sending a fat mosquito flying with a flick of his finger, where it subsequently explodes upon impact with the wall, the blood already in its belly making a little red smear against the drab concrete.

"Now, now, Illumi, I didn't come to your house and start insulting everything about it, so it's not nice to do it to mine."

" _Mmhmm._ "

And that's when Hisoka begins to notice Illumi's presence around his home. Illumi likes to occupy the shadows, or otherwise his weathered, flaking rooftop in the dead of the night, in which case Hisoka will sometimes join him.

(Even though their homes aren't much like homes, they find a place of refuge in each other.)


	4. Slaughterhouse

Illumi nurses the hole in his gut, trying to shift to a position that places more pressure on it to stave off the blood flow. Still, he can feel his clothes become more and more saturated with wet warmth every second that passes.

He'd been ambushed on a sniper mission, where he had set up a nest in someone's apartment and waited until the target arrived to shoot her down just as she got out of her car. Nen-infused fifty calibre ammunition rounds ensures that even four hundred meters away, the target is dead even before she hits the ground. After firing the bullet-- before he's even had a chance to look up from the scope-- he gets stabbed in the back with a tranquilizer, shot in the gut in the ensuing struggle, and almost knocked out when it kicks in and he realizes that they used a _horse tranquilizer._

(Hunting the hunter as he hunts another is one of the oldest tricks in the book, Illumi should've known better. He was taught better than that. And he left all his gear behind. The young couple who live in that apartment will have an unexpected gift when they come back from their vacation.)

Currently he is tied up with rope tight enough to cut off circulation in his extremities, handcuffed behind his back, gagged with what seemed to be a tennis ball secured by duct tape in his mouth, blindfolded, and drugged to the gills for good measure (not a horse tranq this time, he notes, but a mix between a muscle relaxant and perhaps some invention of their own). Now paralyzed, blind, and lacking any of his usual sharp mindedness, he is glad they haven't thought to deafen him as well. Complete sensory isolation in all but tactility is not ideal if he wants a good chance of escaping from this unpleasant situation. He considers it for a grim moment. If at all.

He keeps his face wiped clean of all emotion, even if the blindfold covers most of his face, and the moving vehicle where he lies in its trunk gets snagged on yet another pothole in the road and jostles his injury. While whatever that is in those drugs make his thoughts sluggish and his muscles pathetically limp, they certainly do not impede any of his pain sensors. In fact, after considering it for a moment, he can almost say it enhanced everything he feels. Which is mostly pain and discomfort at the current time. How unpleasant.

The vehicle takes a few more potholes and Illumi loses a bit more blood (in the back of his mind, he notes that their destination must be in a rather secluded area, for the roads to be in this state of disrepair). He hears the trunk get opened, feels the change in temperature and air pressure, and rough hands grab him and he's dragged out of the trunk.

Someone makes a comment about getting blood all over the place and the bullet wound in his gut is messily bound with a cloth soon after. It bites into his belly and aggravates the throbbing pain already there, and it's only Mother's tolerance training that prevents him from outright grimacing. He briefly wishes that he is an Enhancer instead, for their sheer durability and ability to enhance the regenerate traits of their bodies.

He's carried on someone's shoulder (digging further into his still-bleeding injury) into a building. As they progress, he tries to keep track of how many turns they take but quickly gets lost as the drugs running through his veins seem to turn his brain to mush. But he's aware when they descend a set of stairs, so at least he knows he's in a basement. They chain him to a chair and take off the gag, and then they rip the blindfold off of him.

Because he's beyond blinking rapidly and looking around like a idiot, Illumi keeps his eyes half lidded for the first few seconds to let them adjust to the bright lamp shining straight down on his face. It's all very typical, one of the most clichéd intimidation tactic in the world-- impede the prisoner's vision just enough that it's not too clear what they're looking at.

He allows himself two more seconds of general peace before a large hand grabs his hair and his viewpoint is suddenly yanked upwards to look into the face of the man glaring down at him.

It isn't a mean glare. The man glares at him like he's some sort of freakish bug, weird and repulsive. "So _this_ is the Zoldyck's eldest son." He says.

Illumi vaguely recognizes the man to be Jun Tayer, second-in-command of a once nationally prominent crime gang, the name of which escapes his memory because it didn't seem so important at the time he viewed their file report when he hacked into the police database a year ago. In the midst of his drug-addled mind, he also remembers that a year ago Father had gotten a contract to assassinate their leader. The Zoldyck family has a 100% success rate.

In that instant, Illumi comes to the conclusion that these people are the remnants of what remains of the gang, and they kidnapped him in hopes of getting revenge for their downfall.

Unfortunately for them, the Zoldyck family doesn't operate like that.

Mother's still young, after all, and she can always have more. There's already six year old Milluki (who has taken what little computer coding skills Illumi has taught him and currently in the process of developing them to a whole different level) and a third one is coming in nine months' time.

He's ripped out of his thoughts when someone punches him in the face. If he isn't so drugged up he would have been able to absorb the impact properly so it doesn't cause as much damage, but in his current state when the blunt force collides with his cheekbone, his head snaps back and he bites his tongue.

Slowly, Illumi lowers his head and looks into Tayer's eyes as he spits out a wad of blood on the ground like a challenge.

Tayer sneered. "Bitchy little ice princess, aren't you?"

Illumi stares passively back at him. He doesn't make a sound. Tayer seems unnerved by the lack of reaction because he turns to another man behind him and says, "Give hm another 5 mL."

"But, that's enough to kill an elephant--"

Illumi sees the label on the little bottle out of the corner of his eye and silently agrees.

But Tayer laughs and gives Illumi a palpable look of revulsion. "He'll survive. These Zoldycks raise their kids up to be monsters, after all."

Cheek throbbing, neck aching from the whiplash he got from the hit, and bullet wound rhythmically delivering stabs of pain to his belly, Illumi mentally prepares himself for it. Because for all his eleven years of training in poison immunity (all Zoldyck children start at birth, as according to tradition), 5 mL of something that's supposed to be given in 0.5 mL increments per 100 lbs. body weight is... not going to be good.

It takes only a few seconds to kick in and it hits him like a train, wrecking through everything inside of him until his brain feels like it's falling apart and his bones seem nonexistent. Not enough to kill him, but _just._

Illumi sort of... sags in the chair, feeling like he was drowning without any water, held up only by the chains digging into his ribcage. He doesn't realize he's been released until he's already on the floor and someone knees him in the face.

Falling to the side, he barely catches himself on the shoulder before another blow comes from the back. Then another and another, until it becomes a barrage of brutal hits pounding down upon his back, his ribs, legs, arms, his head. He struggles to get on his knees, feeling like he was underwater, when a boot sinks into his gut and he coughs up a thick splatter of blood and saliva. Another inhale of air later, and he chokes on the remains that haven't yet cleared from his mouth.

Only coughing out of pure bodily defense mechanism, Illumi doesn't splutter, doesn't scrunch up his face and wipe his mouth on his hand, doesn't gasp like a landed fish. He's silent. Steady. He's perfectly, absolutely, _unnervingly_ blank the entire time, even while fighting for control through his drug-drowned mind and getting brutalized by a dozen other grown men.

Because it still doesn't even hold a candle to what he's gone through at his family's hands.

Eventually someone takes a knife to his skin and begins carving out random designs, using his flesh like a drawing board. He vaguely feels the warmth of his blood sliding across his skin and soaking into his clothes and spilling onto the floor. It actually wakes him up a little, because the drug is leaking out along with his bloodstream.

It's good enough to make him somewhat regain control of his fingers, though not enough for him to fight back. Yet.

Suddenly there's a scream somewhere in the distance. The knife sliding through his skin slows, and then jerks in surprise when there's another gruesome death cry, this time closer.

"The hell?" someone mutters.

Whoever is wielding the knife has completely stopped and the men are looking around in confused trepidation. Tayer takes out his gun and the rest of them copy his actions, some reaching for bulky automatics leaning on the side.

Sparing a glance at Illumi laying on the blood-smeared floor, Tayer is stopped short when he's confronted by two big blank eyes, black as the abyss, staring steadily back at him. He's more than a little creeped out by it, but is quick to disguise it as disgust instead.

"Zoldycks and their freak children," Tayer spits out, before turning back to face the door. "Be on your guard, gentlemen," he says to the people around him. "Whoever's coming is coming here, so shoot the motherfucker down as soon as you see him."

"How rude."

The voice comes out of nowhere, the tenor of a young pubescent male out of place in this room full of deep basses and rough altos. Everyone turns to stare at the boy who steps out from the shadows of the room. He's wearing a rock band t-shirt and his pink sneakers has blood on their soles.

Hisoka puts a hand on his hip and flips his neon green bangs. "There's a lot of people who fuck my mother," he tells them loftily. "But I've certainly never done it."

His gold eyes narrow as they land on Illumi's form on the floor. Illumi stares back, and manages to look almost bored as he lays in his own puddle of blood. "I don't like to share," Hisoka adds.

How Hisoka found him, Illumi doesn't know, but it doesn't bother him too much because Hisoka always does it. Sometimes it almost seems as if the teen has some sort of natural radar for him. Illumi's already checked his clothing and possessions hundreds of times before, even under his skin, but has never found a tracking device anywhere.

"You aren't a Zoldyck. I don't know who you are," Tayer snarls, raising his gun. "But you're not getting out of here alive."

A gunshot rings out, but the man is dead even before the bullet leaves the barrel of the gun. He crumples to the ground with a hole in his brain. And then there's Hisoka with a handful of marbles in his pockets.

It quickly descends into chaos-- gunshots shooting everywhere, deafeningly loud in the enclosed room, and beneath all that, the screaming of men. The overhead lamp shatters and glass flies and the whole room is plunged into darkness. The only sources of light now are the flashes of gunfire. Hisoka doesn't even have to do anything.

It gradually dwindles out, someone shouting for everyone to stop shooting, the group realizing that more people on their side are getting hurt by bullet ricochets than anything else.

" _Fuck!_ "

"I can't see shit in here!"

"Someone get a fucking light! We can't lose track of those two brats!"

In the midst of the adults' confusion, Hisoka makes his way over to Illumi.

"Fancy meeting you here, Illumi dear." Hisoka's smiles are always not very nice, mostly pleasing to see but carry a dangerous edge that set most people off.

He crouches down to pick the lock to Illumi's handcuffs and unties him. His hands linger longer than they should have, fingers trailing tenderly across the dark bruises and the red slashes on those deceptively thin arms, porcelain pale like a doll's, smearing blood across the soft skin.

"Hisoka," Illumi says, mainly because he was trying to clear his mind enough to control his motor functions properly. He sits up slowly, brushing Hisoka's hands away with nary a glance. "Hello."

Hisoka stands up and holds out his hand, which the younger boy stares at like it was poison offered to him.

The lights turn back on, using this time the room's main built-in light fixtures.

"There they are! Kill those fuckers!"

Hisoka's come to bust him out and Illumi doesn't know what he's doing here. But that's just the usual.

So Illumi blatantly ignores the hand outstretched to him and drags himself up alone.

He stumbles once, casually ripping out an unlucky man's esophagus in the process, Hisoka nearly nods in approval-- and together they turn the place into a slaughterhouse.


End file.
